On a Quiet Night
by Lady Moonstone
Summary: This is just a short vignette on how Holmes' cocaine habit might effect Dr. Watson.


_This is my first attempt at Sherlock Holmes fan fiction, although I have several Jack Sparrow stories under the pen name "Saahira" (I forgot my password and couldn't figure out how to retrieve it, so I just started over again). I wanted to explore a little of what effect Holmes' use of cocaine might have on Watson, and how it might effect their home life. This is just a brief little vignette on that subject. I hope you enjoy it! _

**On a Quiet Night**

_**by Lady Moonstone**_

It had been two weeks since the case of Lord Blackwood had come to a close, and my friend Sherlock Holmes was bored. Of course he had been exploring all avenues of investigation into the mystery of his newest obsession, one Professor James Moriarty, but thus far his best efforts had led only to false leads and dead ends. If Moriarty interested himself in anything other than the study of asteroids and the education of college students, Holmes could not find it. Yet my friend remained utterly convinced that Moriarty's motivations were sinister on a grander scale than that of most villains.

I sat in my armchair with Gladstone snoring gently nearby, finishing my humble rendition of the Blackwood case. Holmes reclined on the couch, his hair uncombed, his face unshaven, dressed in that hideous old robe that he insisted on wearing. A half-empty bottle of cognac sat on the floor beside him; it had been full just hours earlier. His tobacco smoke formed a halo of sorts around his head, the smell simultaneously sweet and pungent. It had been more than an hour since last he had spoken, and I knew his brilliant mind, always active to the point of mania, now tumbled uselessly through all those infuriating dead ends .

Abruptly Holmes sat up, thrusting his pipe onto the table beside him. He shrugged out of the old robe, letting it drop unceremoniously to the floor, leaving him dressed only in black trousers. With a physician's eye, I noted - again - that he had lost weight in the past two weeks, as evidenced by a too-sharp display of ribs against torso. His body consisted of hard, lean muscle with barely any layer of fat to pad his form out. A driven man, was Holmes, and too often he failed to eat when in the grip of some obsession. Of late, as stated above, that obsession was Professor Moriarty. The fact that Irene Adler had disappeared from his life again only added to his despair.

Rising, he moved to his desk, opened a drawer. _The_ drawer.

"Holmes," I began in admonishment.

Glancing my way, he grinned crookedly, wearily, resignedly, his mental torment obvious. And I knew that nothing I said would change his mind. Still, to voice no objection at all was a thing I could never do.

He withdrew the small Moroccan casket and returned to his place on the couch. Balancing that all-too familiar box upon his lap, he opened it to reveal the medical tourniquet, the syringe, and the narcotics which were always his favorite refuge against boredom.

"Which is it tonight?" I asked him unhappily. "Morphine or cocaine?"

"My seven percent solution. Care to try some?" His tone was sarcastic. He already knew my answer.

Ignoring his offer, I went on, "I wish you wouldn't put that poison into your body. Because it _is_ poison, you know. People die from its use every day."

"Tut tut, Watson. A nag is never attractive. You'll find that out when the winsome Mary reveals herself as a yammering shrew upon your marriage to her." He stretched his lips in a thin smile.

I refused to be baited into that old argument. "Your constitution is no stronger than that of other people. Less so, since you never eat enough. That drug will be the death of you someday," I continued relentlessly.

"As I just pointed out, nagging is a most unflattering attribute, Doctor. If I desired a nag," he mumbled almost unintelligibly, "I would have found myself a Mrs. Holmes by now." Mumbling, because one end of the tourniquet was secured between his teeth while he tightened the strip around his upper arm with his other hand. His veins bulged, and too clearly I could see the marks of past injection sites, dark pinpricks of scars against paler flesh.

I closed my eyes briefly, then with a lump in my throat went back to my manuscript. I could not stop Holmes from putting that toxin into his body, but that did not mean I must watch him do it.

At that precise moment a knock came upon the door, Gladstone jerked awake with a low grumble, and Mrs. Hudson's voice called out, "Mr. Holmes!" Without waiting for permission, she pushed the door open. And stopped on the threshold, her face in an instant going from friendly, to cold and disapproving as she saw what he was doing.

The needle was in his vein, the liquid contained in the syringe slowly disappearing inside his sinewy arm. Holmes smiled insincerely at the woman and said, "Nanny, _dearest_. Here we were discussing shrews and suddenly, there you are. I call that more than coincidence, wouldn't you, Watson?"

I ignored him. "Mrs. Hudson," I said warmly, putting aside my work and rising as any gentleman would at the entrance of a lady to the room, "what brings you here so late in the evening?"

It took her a moment to retrieve her thoughts. Disgust mingled with sorrow in her expression before she took a breath and turned her gaze to me. "A visitor, Doctor," she said, "asking for Mr. Holmes. But now ..." She looked at my companion again, and again her expression darkened.

Holmes had removed the needle and was now removing the tourniquet. He rubbed at the injection site as one would at an insect sting, but I knew he was in actuality helping the drug hurry on its way to his brain. His eyes were closed, enjoying the sensation, the burn of cocaine racing up his arm, but he opened his eyes when he sensed our gazes upon him. "A visitor," he said imperially, "how lovely. Escort him up, woman."

Mrs. Hudson's lips curled and she said angrily, "I will do no such thing. Not now. Not when you're about to start raving from that concoction of cocoa leaves."

"Perhaps," I interjected, stepping into the argument before it could become one, "I might go down and see to our guest in his place?"

As always in such circumstances, Mrs. Hudson appreciated my gesture. "Yes, Doctor," she agreed, "I think that would be for the best." With one last, venomous glare at my friend, she stomped back down the stairs.

"Annoying creature," Holmes said. He had shrugged back into his old robe and was pulling it around his spare frame. "Remind me why we keep her around?"

I sighed in exasperation. "She's our landlady, Holmes. She _owns_ this house."

"Which explains nothing of why we tolerate her presence. "

"I'm going downstairs to meet our visitor. You … stay here."

"And where else would I go, old boy? I have … things to consider. Moriarty is like a fly to my spider - a very sinister and sneaky fly, I grant you that - but a fly nonetheless. And I _will_ trap him. I …"

Just feet away from him, I could already see his pupils dilating. His cheeks were more flushed than they had been from just the cognac alone. "Stay here," I repeated more firmly, and I closed the door behind me when I left. Loyal Gladstone followed at my heels.

It turned out to be a matter of little consequence and easily resolved, and I gladly closed the entry door and locked it, happy not to be going out so late at night.

From upstairs, muffled somewhat by the intervening walls, came the sound of Holmes' violin. He was playing a piece from "La Traviata" by Giuseppe Verdi , a very slow, very sad love song from the opera. I knew, as the drug took him over, that that piece would soon be replaced by something much wilder and more frenzied. Thus it was after Holmes partook of the leaves of the cocoa plant.

The notes dripped from the strings of his violin like teardrops, an effect only the greatest masters of the instrument could achieve. Oftentimes in the summer, when the windows of 221B were thrown open to catch the breeze, people would gather outside our home on Baker Street to listen in awe, and to enjoy the strains of music coming to them from within. None of them knew, nor did I wish them to know, the torment of the musician.

Having no desire to witness my friend in such a state, I bid Gladstone follow me and went to my own room instead.

By then, smoothly and without any pause, Holmes had transitioned to another song. Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5, commonly called "Turkish". Somehow Holmes was playing more than one part, filling out some few of the notes normally occupied by an orchestra. The tones of his violin were sweet and pure, yet the pace of the music was faster than Mozart had ever intended.

The cocaine, I judged, was reaching its full effect now. Sometimes I wondered which was worse - his mad but masterful playing, or the times he sat staring at nothing while plucking atonal notes from that poor violin.

By the time I settled in my bed, Mozart might not have recognized his concerto in the beautiful yet frenetic piece my friend was playing. It was as if the devil himself drove my friend's hands. But of course I knew that Satan had nothing to do with it.

This was Holmes' personal demon. And my own personal sorrow.


End file.
